Junior Fiction Winner

ONE SOCK BY KAIA DOUGLAS GRADE 10, THOMAS A. STEWART (MR. MILNER)

I’m riding home from school because I can’t take it. I can’t see. I’m blinded by my uncontrollable tears. The past day I’ve felt so numb and I’ve tried to cry; tried to feel something. Now I can’t stop crying. I’m oblivious to the world around me, just a sobbing, heartbroken shell of a person. My flowery, cheerful bike is a distant relic of my mood yesterday morning. I don’t care what I look like, though. The other people on this path have no idea what just quietly turned my heart inside out.

I shouldn’t be riding a bike in this state. It’s like drunk driving; I can’t see or think. I glance down toward the river. The day is hot, but I know that the water is chilly from the recent ice melt. Frigid. Cold. Anything to take my mind off the wrenching desolation. I lock my bike to a tree and collapse on a rock beside the rushing water.

She was too young. Her name was Michelle Anne Rose and she died of cancer yesterday. I got the news after school, when my family was gone. I was home when my phone rang. My cell phone, not my home phone. Funny, nobody ever calls my cell phone. I was curious. It was Lynda.

“Hey, Meep! What’s up?” I said casually.

“Clara Clara Clara sit down!” she answered urgently. I heard a trace of tears in her voice. Oh no. Lynda never panics.

“What’s happening?!” I blurted out, fear filling the space where my heart had been.

“Are you sitting down?” Lynda’s hysteria closes in on me.

“Yes! Just tell me what’s going on!” I screamed. I wasn’t sitting down.

“Clara … I just got a text from Michelle’s mom… and, Clara Michelle passed away today.”

The next few moments were a blur. I was dizzy. I couldn’t breathe. I was crying. I think I may have yelled at Lynda to tell me that it was a lie but she just cried too and told me that it wasn’t. It was all real. Michelle was gone.

The cold water rushes past my feet. I tried to go to school earlier this afternoon to “take my mind off it,” but, who was I kidding? You can’t just temporarily forget about this kind of thing. Not even for one second.

Losing a grandparent is tough. It’s so hard. But this was different. Michelle wasn’t even three hands old yet. Michelle was a selfdeclared child and would only order off the kid’s menu to prove it. Michelle was only just getting started in her life. Then she was suddenly wrenched away from it.

I catch myself using past tense in my head. I shiver.

For the first time since I got the news, something distracts me from my selfish pain and I remember her parents who have just lost their only child. All my anger vaporizes and is replaced by brutal sympathy. I cry honest, hopeless tears, for a very, very long time.

Mark Perry’s song goes around and around in my head.

Our little world has shattered It will never be the same Laughter turned to tears At the mention of her name

My crying recedes into focused deep breathing for a moment. I see something floating in the sky. The wind dies down and a perfect maple leaf drops gracefully into the river. I try to keep my eye on it but almost immediately lose sight of it. I realize how easily beautiful things can vanish.

My mind wanders to the first time I saw Michelle after her leg was amputated. I was going to her place after school, preparing to be a grief counsellor because, I mean, she had just lost her freaking leg. She was more cheerful than ever and bragged that she didn’t have to worry about mismatched socks anymore. I attempt a smile at this memory and manage a sort of grimace through my grief. I even let out a sort of sniffle-ish laugh. Oh, where are you?

Michelle was a Christian. I’m a Nature-Loving Pagan. I don’t believe in the whole Golden Gates in the Sky thing. No, but I think that Michelle is in a better place than that. Now, her spirit embodies all flowers, trees, rivers and birds. She’s everywhere. Nature is Heaven. Michelle is my guardian spirit, no matter the religion.

I’m drawing hearts with my finger in the soil. I notice a small white flower beside the rock I’m sitting on. “Michelle,” I whisper to her, my heart free for a moment. I smile with shiny, damp eyes.

Today I’m wearing these really thick fluffy pink socks under my Birks. It’s June so I don’t really know why that happened, but I could ask that same question about a lot of things. My hands, now in control, take off my right sock. I tentatively put it in the rushing river. It floats. I let it... go.

This is my One Sock moment. And all the special moments That quickly come to mind Help to gather strength For the ones left behind

As I climb back up to my bike, I decide that grieving isn’t about pushing away the tears and forgetting it all happened. It’s about welcoming the tears and pain and making peace with the situation that, well... sucks a lot. It’s about learning how to find Michelle in this new reality. I’m never going to completely get over this. That’s a good thing, because it means she meant a lot to me in the short time I knew her.

“I love you Michelle,” I proclaim as I jump back onto my bike and ride home, head held high. A new angel flies tonight In the skies up above And she knows well She leaves here with our love. - Mark Perry (New Angel)

In Loving Memory of Hailey Holmes who continues to inspire me with her unbeatable spirit Dec 31st 2001-June 1st 2016